Real estate daily dish

Low mortgage interest rates are spurring a bunch of people to try to refinance their loans. Buyers? Not so much now that the federal stimulus has disappeared.

The Mortgage Bankers Association today reports that with rates at their lowest since mid-March, refinancing surged. “In contrast, purchase applications fell almost 10 percent in the first week following the expiration of the homebuyer tax credit, as the tax credit likely pulled some sales into April that would otherwise have occurred in May or later,” said Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s vice president of research and economics, in a prepared release.

The MBA this week also released a study that predicts the current recession – (Or has it ended already? Who knows) – and slow recovery will create “negative, lasting effects on the current young generation and force many retirement age individuals to remain in the workforce.”

Uh-oh.

“The severity and duration of the most recent downturn far exceeds what we have experienced in past recessions and has resulted in the disruption of millions of lives,” Fratantoni said in a news release, “We can’t know for certain at this point, but it is more than reasonable to prepare for a world that has been irrevocably changed by this experience. For the many reasons discussed in this study, we should expect hesitant homebuyers, cautious businesses, and conservative lenders in the years ahead.”

Casey B. Mulligan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, makes a case for the positives of the housing boom in the New York Times Economix blog.

“With the advantage of hindsight, we might have preferred to have stretched out the 2000-2006 construction activity over a longer period, or to have put some of the new houses in different locations. Still, much of the housing built in the 2000s will ultimately prove desirable,” Mulligan writes.

Still need something more uplifting? Check out this listing at LovelyListings.com for a good laugh.